Run
by Jade II
Summary: Laura and Bill on the run from the Cylons on New Caprica. Spoilers til the end of season 2, diverges from canon after that.
1. Part 1

It was chaos.

Screams, explosions, gunfire… everywhere she turned Laura saw only darkness and destruction. The world was filled with blood and smoke and fire and it was taking all her strength to not just sink to the ground and cry with fear and despair.

She forced herself to focus, scanning her surroundings for some means of escape or at least somewhere to hide… and found nothing.

Her shoulders sank and she shook her head helplessly. The despair started to seep through the widening cracks in her resolve and she felt her knees starting to buckle beneath her. A sob escaped her lips, and Laura Roslin gave up and let herself fall.

A hand grabbed her arm.

Laura looked up, but all she could see through the smoke and the darkness was a vague silhouette. Before she could speak she found herself running through the melee, being dragged along at a breakneck pace by whoever it was who had such a firm grip on her arm.

She suddenly realised that she didn't know if she was running away from death or toward it. Who was to say that her mysterious rescuer wasn't a Cylon? She was sure there were any number of things the Cylons might want her for, whether she were dead or alive. Should she really be blindly following this man, whoever he was? But how could she not – his grip on her arm felt like steel.

They had run far enough now for the fighting to be thinning out. This meant that there was less smoke, and Laura felt like she could breathe more easily and regain some of her focus. Unfortunately their distance from the centre of the conflict also meant that there was less light. She felt dead leaves crunching under her feet and had a vague impression of branches as she was pulled into ducks and weaves around invisible obstacles. A more definite impression of a branch was given when one sprung back into her face after whoever it was who was pulling her pushed past it. Laura cried out involuntarily, which earned her a _shhh!_ from her capto-- rescu-- …_companion_. She clamped her jaw shut as blood began to trickle down her cheek.

Something metallic glittered between the trees not far away—a Cylon centurion? Laura froze, which was not a good idea with her current forward momentum. She tripped and was dragged several feet before her companion stopped and pulled her upright again. When she regained her balance she saw what had been glinting behind the trees.

They were standing in a small clearing, at the side of which was parked one of _Galactica_'s Raptors.

"Get in," said a familiar gravelly voice, and she squinted at the man letting go of her arm and finally recognized him.

It was Bill Adama. He was panting rather heavily and gently pushing her towards the ship.

Laura's brain suddenly kicked itself back into gear and she protested in a whisper, "We can't just fly off and leave them here to die! We could fit ten more people on that ship, at least!"

Bill shook his head and his pushing became more persistent. "The engine's shot; this ship's not flying anywhere. We need to get the weapons and food rations which are onboard and then get the hell out of here."

Understanding dawned and she stopped resisting his push. They scrambled aboard the Raptor and Bill grabbed a bag and started to fill it with emergency food rations. Even in the low lighting Laura could see that there were more than enough rations to fit into the bag three times over, but when it was about three-quarters full he pulled out another bag and threw it at her, motioning for her to take over while he opened another container and started throwing its contents into his own bag. Laura realised that the second container contained ammunition and tried to calculate in her head what the best ratio of food to ammo might be, but she didn't have enough experience in situations like these for her to be able to reason properly. She left the strategic thinking in Bill's capable hands and concentrated on packing her bag as quickly as possible. Still, when he handed her her own allotment of ammunition she couldn't help the shiver which went down her spine. She had never been very comfortable around weapons.

Then Bill handed her a gun.

She hesitated for a short instant but then took it, trying not to let her hands shake. The metal was cold and the shape of her grip felt strange, but this was no time to be squeamish.

"You okay with this?" Bill asked, pausing for a second in his ruthless raid of the ship's supplies.

Laura made herself nod.

"Alright. Remember, just point, shoot and don't be surprised by the recoil." He packed two more guns in his bag and loaded a third, which he secured in a holster around his waist.

"Right," Laura affirmed somewhat belatedly, trying not to stare too hard at the unfamiliar sight of the gun in her hands.

Bill scrambled toward the hatch and looked out. "Okay, looks like we're clear." He met her gaze through the dim light and held it for a second. She gave him a nod, which he returned. "Right." He held out his hand for hers. "Let's go."

She reached out for him and they jumped out of the ship and continued running into the night.


	2. Part 2

Laura wasn't sure how long they had been running when Bill finally deemed it safe to slow down, but her legs felt weak and sore and it was a struggle to regain her breath. She felt a strange sense of satisfaction when she noticed that Bill seemed to be faring equally badly. They stood in the darkness gulping air and Laura made to sit down, but Bill put a hand on her arm to restrain her.

"Better not to stop completely. It'll just make it harder when we get going again."

Looking from Bill to the extraordinarily inviting seeming ground and back again, Laura sighed and straightened her legs. "Where are we going, anyway?"

"There should be a cave system in the mountains north of here. We'll be safe there while we figure out how to get to the rendezvous point." He slowly began pacing back and forth again, keeping his legs moving.

"And how do you know where north is, on this strange planet in the dark?" she asked, matching his stride.

"Ah, well." Bill held up a hand as if he were about to disclose some great military secret. "That is all due to this ingenious little device strapped to my sleeve. It's called a compass."

Laura grinned, which was quickly followed by a wince as the dried blood on her face cracked and re-opened the long cut down her cheek.

"You want me to take a look at that?" Bill asked, pausing in his pacing to step closer to her.

"No, I'm fine," Laura assured him quickly. "Besides, you wouldn't be able to see much in this light."

She thought she saw him nod. "Alright," he said. "You ready to go on?"

"As I'll ever be," she replied, trying and failing not to wonder exactly how far she would be required to go on. She lifted her bag back onto her shoulder and took Bill's arm, letting him lead her at a brisk walk through the barely illuminated woods. Her other hand renewed its grip on her gun, which was growing slick with nervous sweat.

"Is it safe to talk or might there be Cylons close by?" she asked after a moment.

"If they were close enough to hear us right now they'd be close enough to detect our heat signatures and pick us off with a sniper," Bill said almost casually.

"Right." Laura couldn't help but smile. "Isn't that a cheery thought."

Bill let out a grunt which sounded like it might be amused. "Did you have a topic of conversation in mind?"

"Yes, actually." Laura asked the question which had been on her mind for a while now. "What are you doing here, Bill? Shouldn't you be up there on your ship, overseeing things?"

"Technically yes," he admitted, in a tone of voice which reminded her of a student trying to come up with an excuse for not doing an assignment. "But we were short a Raptor pilot, and we couldn't rework the plan to use one less."

"So you got back in the pilot's seat." Laura was more amused than anything.

"Yes, I did."

She let some of the humor drain from her voice. "And then your plan failed anyway, I'm assuming?"

"Well yes, but that was just plan A." Bill didn't sound too perturbed about it. "We do have a plan B."

"And if that fails too?"

"Then we still have chance and blind luck to fall back on."

Laura laughed. "Well, I suppose that's worked for us before."

"Exactly." The light tone of Bill's voice matched her own, masking the underlying seriousness of the conversation. "Why change a winning strategy."

"Why, indeed." Laura squeezed his arm amiably. "It's good to see you, Bill."

"You too, Laura." He turned his face toward her but she couldn't read it in the darkness. Still, by his voice she took it that he was smiling.

By the same token she was sure he was no longer smiling when a bullet ricocheted off the tree his head had been in front of just moments before.

"Is this that sniper fire you mentioned?" Laura managed after he had thrown her to the ground beneath him and knocked most of the breath from her lungs.

"It would appear so." Bill reached for his gun and fired blindly in the direction the bullet had come from. The only result was more gunfire, bullets flying by so close overhead that Laura could almost feel them brushing past her hair.

She held up her own gun and studied it uncertainly. Her fingers felt stiff from clutching it too hard, so much so that she wasn't sure she'd be able to pull the trigger.

"You'll have to turn the safety off if you're gonna use that," Bill said, not looking away from his intense study of the woods in front of them.

"Right…" Laura muttered, doing as he said. She tried to turn in the direction of the gunfire, but something at the corner of her eye caught her attention. Sending up a silent prayer, she pointed the gun and pulled the trigger.

The gun recoiled violently in her hands as a cry came from behind a tree far closer than Laura had expected, and one of the Cylons who looked like the reporter fell out from behind it, clutching her leg. Bill put a bullet through her head before she could regain focus and reach for her gun.

"We've got to move," Bill declared, pulling Laura up by her arm with one hand whilst firing more shots off into the wilderness with the other. "I'll lay down cover fire. You stay in front of me, move as fast as you can and stay low as much as possible. And be careful where you point that thing!" he admonished, tilting his head at the gun she now realized she was holding rather dangerously close to his chest.

"Right." Laura risked a glance back at Bill and ran again, trying to ignore her painfully protesting muscles and just keep moving, until the guns were out of earshot and Bill once again let them stop, panting and wheezing, with their mountainous destination looming close and the pre-dawn light just starting to turn the black world into gray.

This time he let her sit down without argument.


	3. Part 3

They eventually reached the caves just after sunrise, but Bill wouldn't let them rest until they'd gotten good and far into the rocky maze under the mountain – and, as far as Laura could see, lost, but Bill assured her he knew exactly where they were.

Finally they made camp – if spreading their jackets on the ground to sit on and setting their bags and the flashlight down could be called that – in a small hollow off one of the less cavernous tunnels, and Bill offered to take the first watch while Laura got some sleep.

She declined, however. "I won't be able to sleep for at least another hour," she said, trying to settle into a more comfortable sitting position against the cold, hard rock, pushing her boots off and pulling the corners of her jacket up around her ice-cold toes. "Have to wait for the adrenaline to wear off. You can try if you want, though. I promise to wake you if somebody shoots at me."

Bill chuckled, but shook his head. "I was thinking more along the lines of food, actually."

"Oh," Laura perked up, "that does sound good."

His chuckling grew louder. "You've never eaten field rations before, have you?"

"I'm sorry to say I know them by reputation only." Laura smiled wryly. "I have occasionally felt a morbid desire to try them, though. Just to see if that reputation is justified."

"Well, here's your chance to find out." The look on Bill's face seemed suspiciously fiendish as he dug two foil-wrapped bars from his bag and tossed one to her before sitting down at her side.

Laura peeled the foil back without hesitation and bit into the yellow-brown bar. It was smooth in texture, but as she chewed Laura realized that it was also decidedly… sticky. This did not make it easy to swallow, and it took her more than a minute just to get the first mouthful down. After that, there was the matter of the aftertaste. The taste of the bar itself was simply bland, but when she had swallowed there was a taste left in her mouth which was unpleasantly and unfamiliarly bitter.

Bill was looking at her while he chewed his own ration bar, obviously trying to conceal a smirk. "So, is its reputation justified?" he asked, swallowing neatly before he spoke. Laura wondered how he managed that.

"Do you know," she replied, "I think it is." And she shrugged and took a second bite. When, after another minute of concentrated chewing, she had finished it, she said, "So, tell me about this plan B of yours."

Bill obliged, somehow managing to eat and talk at the same time, while all she could do was work her jaws and hope the vile stuff wouldn't pull her teeth out. He explained about the virus, engineered by Sharon Agathon whom he somehow trusted completely, and about the sneak escape which was being equally engineered by Saul Tigh to take place during the chaos which was sure to ensue upon said virus' release. He drew a map in the dirt on the ground in front of them, illustrating their position relative to the rendezvous point to the east where the recaptured ships from the ground would be picking up their passengers. "It would be a day's walk if we were on the surface. If we stay underground it's more likely to be two. The plan is due to be executed three days from now."

"So that give us a margin of a day," Laura mused, crumpling the empty foil wrapper of her ration bar between her fingers.

"Two, if we take to the surface."

"Is that wise?" Laura asked, meeting his eyes.

"Probably not," Bill said. "Just less dark and claustrophobic."

"Don't tell me you're afraid of dark enclosed spaces, Bill," Laura teased. "I thought you were a Viper pilot."

"At least in a Viper you can see the stars," Bill said. "But no, I'm not claustrophobic. It's the possibility of the battery in the flashlight dying that might be an issue. I have two lightsticks, but after that we'd be lost, with very little chance of getting out alive."

"How likely is it that the battery will die?"

Bill shook his head. "There's no way to tell. It should have been fresh when the Raptor was launched, but the way things have slipped on _Galactica_…" he trailed off, grimacing.

Laura felt a strange discomfort at hearing this confession of his crew's – and by extension, his – imperfection, but she pushed it aside to focus on the immediate issue. "We still have less chance of being spotted by the Cylons if we stay below ground, right?"

"Yes."

She shook her head. "I'd rather take my chances with the darkness than the Cylons."

"The caves it is, then." Bill nodded. "We'd better turn the flashlight off while we're not moving," he added.

"Alright." Laura tried to settle into a more comfortable position against the rocks while Bill switched off the flashlight. Eventually she gave up and leaned against him instead.

Bill chuckled in the darkness. "I could have told you my shoulder was a more comfortable pillow than that pile of rocks." She felt him sneak an arm around her waist and pull her closer.

"Warmer, too," Laura murmured, finally starting to feel calm enough to sleep.

"Of course," he replied.

"Tell me a bedtime story," she said, feeling whimsical all of a sudden.

She felt his laugh more than she heard it. Then he was silent for a moment before he surprised her by quoting scripture.

"And they did not falter, even when their numbers were diminished and hope seemed far. Neither hunger, nor fear, nor death itself could stop them, for their will was the will of the gods, and so they found after three times a hundred years twelve planets, upon which they lay down their burdens and began anew." Bill cleared his throat, and Laura sensed him turning his head towards her, even though of course he couldn't see her either way. "I saw you, right before I grabbed you on the battlefield, Laura. You gave up. You let yourself fall."

Her breath caught in her throat at being called out so, but she couldn't deny it. "Yes," she said.

"Hmm." He seemed to be contemplating something, but then she felt his attention shift back fully to her. "Don't do that again."

For some reason this seemed vaguely amusing. "Yes, sir," she said warmly.

"Hmph."

This grunt sounded satisfied, so she nestled closer to him and let her control flow away until she could sleep.

She slept an indeterminate length of time, and when she woke she wasn't sure what had roused her. She opened her eyes, blinked, and focussed as much as she could without her glasses.

She didn't realize until she could see it properly how utterly wrong it was for there to be anything to focus on in the darkness at all.

The sight which had captured her attention was a small red light, moving slowly from side to side, probably about twenty feet away.

And it was getting closer.


	4. Part 4

Laura felt Bill jerk away from her and for one, horrifying instant thought he had been shot – which, she realized a moment later, was silly because there had been no shots fired. She could hear him scuffling about in the dark next to her and noticed the roving light of the Centurion's eye turning towards him.

She felt around for her gun. It would do the Cylon no damage, she knew, but it might distract it long enough for Bill to do… well, whatever it was he was planning. At least, he godsdamned better be planning something…

She found the gun, clicked the safety off and fired as best she could at the little red light, and pulled the trigger again, and again, and again, and—

"Cease fire!" shouted Bill's voice, and the shock of it made her pull the trigger again. Bill yelled and she was afraid she'd hit him, but then there was a loud _clunk_ right in front of her and the red light wobbled. _Clunk, clunk, clunk clunk clunk clunk clunk_ and it fell to the ground and went out.

"You okay?" Bill asked.

"Yes," Laura said breathlessly, nodding even though of course he couldn't see her.

"Good." The flashlight clicked on and once she'd gotten used to the glare she saw him standing behind it. "We've gotta go," he said, lifting up his bag and putting his gun back in its holster.

Laura pulled her boots and jacket back on and took the proffered hand to pull her back to her feet. Gathering her own bag and gun, she followed him out into the tunnel –

at whose end there were two more Cylon-eyes moving back and forth.

"Frak," Bill muttered, and he grabbed hold of her and they ran in the opposite direction, turning the corner just before the Centurions opened fire.

"Give me your bag," Bill commanded, shining his flashlight back and forth between the four tunnel-mouths now in front of them. Laura obliged without hesitation and Bill threw the bag down the left-most tunnel before taking her once again by the hand and pelting down the next tunnel over.

They had barely been running for a minute when another Centurion stepped out of a side tunnel and aimed its guns at them. Bill cursed again, throwing his gun at the Cylon's head for a second's distraction while he pulled Laura around a corner into a small cavern.

"Do you see another way out?" Bill demanded, standing at the entrance with his back to her and firing down the tunnel with the second gun he had retrieved from his bag.

"Give me the flashlight."

Bill obliged, tossing it to her over his shoulder. She almost dropped it.

"I can't see anything," she said, scanning the room, trying not to sound panicked… But the walls were smooth on all sides, the ceiling was a mess of stalactites with no cracks in it wide enough to fit even her hand…

"I count at least five heading this way, if we have to make a break for it we should do it now," Bill said urgently.

"I think… wait." There was a small pool of water on the far side of the cavern, it looked deep… Laura ran over and plunged her hand into the icy liquid, feeling for a wall or other obstruction at the back… and there wasn't one. "I think we can swim underneath here," she called. "Bill, the Centurions can't be fully submerged in water, it gets into their wiring and fries it."

Bill hesitated for only a fraction of a second before he risked a glance back at her and said, "Go!" He started edging towards her. "I'll be right behind you!"

Laura steeled herself and stepped into the freezing water. She was shivering uncontrollably before she was fully submerged, and by the time she was on her knees in what felt more like liquid nitrogen than water the only thing that kept her going was the knowledge that half a dozen Centurions were about to come around the corner and gun her down.

She took two deep breaths and went down, plunging underneath the rock. She heard a muted splashing as Bill jumped in behind her, and a slightly less muted "Frak _me_ that's cold!" immediately afterward.

The underwater cave widened as she pushed herself forward, but that was only a small mercy. There were still rugged outcroppings of rocks at various intervals, and the flashlight died mere seconds after having been submersed in the water.

Laura pulled herself along carefully, using the outcroppings as leverage, and hoped and prayed that she would find somewhere to go back up into the air before she and Bill both drowned – and that she wouldn't miss it in the darkness.

Said darkness disappeared abruptly, though, to be replaced by a fluorescent green glow – Bill must have decided to use one of his lightsticks. Immeasurably comforted by the fact that she could _see_, even if it was in a low, sickly light which cast strange dark shadows, Laura forged on.

Then, putting a hand above her head to grab a stalactite, she thought she felt air.

Suddenly feeling like her lungs were bursting now that she'd found a possible way out, she said another small prayer and kicked her legs. She was propelled upwards into a dark, damp-smelling cave and was immediately assaulted by cold, shiver-inducing, _breathable_ air.

Laura gulped it down as if she'd been starved of it for a lot longer than the minute it had actually been, feeling happier than she had in months simply because she could _breathe_ again.

That was when she realized that the light no longer seemed to be moving.

She looked down, afraid that she might be blocking Bill's way up, but all she could see beneath her were the shadows of her own legs treading water.

Her heart started to beat faster in fear and her breath came in gasps, not ideal if she was about to go diving again… which she was, because there was nothing else for it.

Laura forced herself to breathe deeply, and sank back down into the water-filled cave below. It was much more difficult to hold her breath this time, consumed as she was with an almost mind-numbing panic. She followed the light… where was he where was he…

Ah. There.

The strap of his bag had become tangled in a small cluster of stalagmites, and he was floating there limply, obviously having used up too much oxygen struggling to get free. One of his hands was still loosely holding the lightstick… and a knife.

_Well Bill, at least you got something right_, Laura thought, ripping the knife from his grasp and cutting the straps of the bag to free him from them. She could see how he had failed at this; the places she had had to cut it in would not have been easy to get to.

But enough of that. _Come on, Bill_, she thought at him, collecting both lightsticks with the hand she still held the knife in and pulling him bodily towards the surface with the other. Somehow she managed to shove his heavy form up into the cave ahead of her, but when she surfaced and knelt by his side she realized that he wasn't breathing.

"Damn you, Bill, do you know how long it's been since I took first aid?" she muttered, positioning herself next to his head and pinching his nose. "You'd better hope I remember this right," she told him, tilting his head back.

She put her lips to his and blew two quick breaths into his mouth. Looking up, she put a hand on his chest, trying to feel it rise. "Come on, Bill…"

Nothing. She pinched his nostrils again and again lowered her mouth to his for two breaths and pulled back. "Bill? Bill, come on." She slapped him lightly, futilely on the cheek.

She tried again, and this time when she released his nostrils and put her hand on his chest she made herself put on her most severe schoolmistress voice, the one she only used with children who were particularly stubborn, and said, "William Adama, if you don't wake up right now, so help me, I'll—"

Bill coughed.

Laura let out the breath she had somehow been holding even while speaking, and helped him turn his head so he could cough up the water onto the ground rather than his admittedly already soaked self.

"You'll what?" Bill croaked after a moment.

"What?" Laura asked, distracted by stroking his cheek in relief.

"You were saying," Bill said, hauling himself up onto an elbow, "that if I didn't wake up you would do something. I didn't get to hear the end of the threat."

"Oh…" Laura shook her head slightly, knitting her brows. What _had_ she been going to say? "Die, probably," she said weakly.

"Ah." Pulling himself into a sitting position, he cracked a smile. "Can't have that, can we?"

"I'd rather not at the moment, no." She attempted a smile.

Bill nodded understanding and reached for one of her hands, squeezing it comfortingly. "We should keep moving," he said, making to get up.

"What? Bill, you just drowned!" Laura protested incredulously.

"That's true, but I doubt the Cylons will care. Not to mention the lightsticks. We need to get as far as possible before they run out."

"Okay…" she said uncertainly.

"Laura, I'm fine, thanks to you," he reassured her – a little too briskly to be completely convincing. "Really. Now, where's my bag?"

Laura looked back at the water and he followed her gaze. "Ah," he said. "Right." Slowly, he got to his feet. "I guess that's all our luggage, then," he said, gesturing at the knife and the lightsticks still lying at her side.

"I suppose it is," Laura agreed. She gathered the items in question and let Bill pull her to her feet – though not letting him take quite as much of her weight as she would under normal circumstances.

"Just one thing…" Bill said, as they made their way out of the cave. "If we live to tell this tale, I'm the one who resuscitated _you_, alright?"

Laura scoffed. "Why? Are you afraid to admit you needed help from a _girl_?" she teased.

"Not exactly," Bill said amiably. "But I could do with the ego boost."

She guffawed quietly, shaking her head. "We'll see."

"That's all I ask."

The walked on amiably for a few minutes, at as brisk a pace as they could. It wasn't until they stepped out into a larger cavern than the previous ones that Laura suddenly realized that she was still shivering, and said, "Bill, we're both soaking wet. If we're not careful we're going to freeze."

Bill seemed to consider this. "As long as we're on the move we should be alright. We'll worry about it when we stop."

"…Right."

Laura worried about it now. If they were to come all this way just to succumb to hypothermia and frostbite … Well, it would be embarrassing, for a start, but mostly deeply depressing.

Still, there was nothing she could do about it now, so she followed Bill through the maze of caves, trusting that he at least knew roughly where they were going – he did look at his compass from time to time – and hoping that the lightstick would last as long as possible.

Then she started to get hungry. She tried to ignore it – after all, all their rations had been lost – but then she saw, quite by chance, food growing on the wall.

"Bill," she said, tugging his arm. "Food."

"Where?" he said, looking up suddenly as if he'd been pulled out of deep thought. He followed her gaze. "You're kidding."

"No." Laura let go of him and plucked some mushrooms out of the little alcove she had spotted them growing in. "These are edible."

"How do you know?" Bill asked suspiciously, looking at the little white bulbs as if they might jump up at him in some kind of pro-active poisoning attempt.

"I took my students mushrooming a couple of months back. I wouldn't be a very good teacher if I hadn't done my homework, would I?" She popped a mushroom into her mouth. It was slimy and really quite disgusting, but it was food. "Try one," she said.

Bill eyed the proffered mushroom dubiously, but picked it up and put it in his mouth.

He made a face. "You're _sure_ these are edible?" he asked.

"Positive." Laura ate a couple more of the mushrooms and then began gathering them up to hold them against her chest with one arm. "Provisions," she explained.

Bill shook his head, but took the lightsticks and knife from her when she asked him to. When she had picked enough mushrooms to last them for the next two days, after which they would hopefully be rescued, she took his arm with her free hand and they moved on again.

"Happy now?" Bill asked blandly as the pace of their footfalls picked up again.

"Perfectly." Laura smiled beatifically.

"Hmph."

They walked on.

The glow from the lightstick grew dimmer and dimmer, and eventually, when she had tripped over obstacles in the dark more than once and dropped several of her mushrooms, Laura asked if they shouldn't break the second one.

"Not until this one's really gone. It's still got about a half hour of life left in it." She thought he shook his head to punctuate this, but it was getting harder to tell again.

"Alright…" she said, reluctantly ceding to his logic. "But it's your fault if we both trip and break our necks."

"If that happens I'll take full responsibility," Bill assured her.

It was Laura's turn to utter a "Hmph."

Then things suddenly seemed to be growing lighter again.

"…Do you see that?" she asked him uncertainly.

"There must be a gap in the rock up ahead. We should be near the surface."

The light was still faint, but it was definitely gray and not that pallid shade of green Laura was getting so sick of. Might there even be a way out at the source of it? Perhaps they wouldn't have to eat those mushrooms after all…

Sadly, the source of the light became apparent all too soon as a narrow crack in the ceiling of the next cave they came to.

Bill looked at his watch and then up at the light. "The sun's going down," he said. "We should stop here for tonight and save the other light stick for tomorrow."

Laura sighed, but she knew he was right. She put the mushrooms down on a relatively dry piece of ground, grabbed a handful of them and chewed while she looked around their new, less-than-inviting quarters.

The cave was smaller and rounder than the one in which they had spent the previous nigh—wait, _day_ – and the ceiling was low enough to make standing straight impossible. It was slightly less damp, it was true, but as Laura herself was _more_ damp she didn't see this as much of a selling point.

"You should try to get some sleep," Bill said, lowering himself to the ground near the least lumpy-looking part of the cave wall.

"I could say the same for you," she replied, reluctantly sitting down next to him. The stone was cold behind and underneath her, and she had the distinct impression that the water still in her clothes would start to freeze if it got much colder. And this was all while she was still relatively warm from their long – gods, it must've been almost twenty hours… – walk. She felt exhausted, but the fact that she was starting to shiver again made her think that closing her eyes was a bad idea. She didn't really like the sound of freezing as a way to die, even after having tried the more painful alternative of cancer.

"Bill…" she said. She could see that he was trying not to tremble with cold himself, and noticed for the first time that he was wheezing rather heavily. "Remember that 'cold' thing we said we'd worry about later? I'm worrying."

"Don't. It'll be fine." He didn't sound terribly convincing.

"Bill—"

"Here, give me your hands," he said, shuffling closer and reaching for them before he'd even finished the sentence. He rubbed one hand and then the other between his own, breathing on them to provide more warmth. It wasn't enough.

"Bill, this isn't going to work," she said, though she couldn't help a smile at his effort. "Your hands are as cold as mine. Colder, probably. You did die earlier today."

He tried to ignore her for a moment, but then he looked up into her eyes and let go. He didn't take his hands back, but held hers with his left and moved the other up to finger the damp, cold fabric of her sleeve.

Then he cupped her chin in his palm and kissed her.

Oh…

Oh, _that_ worked.

He pulled away and she could see sheer, unadulterated terror in his eyes. Restraining herself from laughing at the way this unaccustomed expression made him look like a little boy caught in the middle of the night with his hand in the cookie jar, Laura smiled and nodded, trying to reassure him, and pressed her lips to his again.

Even as she felt the heat rising in her chest in response to his careful caress, Laura thought about the mechanics of this particular way of keeping warm. She had read more than a couple of trashy romance novels where such things featured as plot devices, but she had no idea if it actually worked in reality. However, she couldn't think of anything better, and if she was going to die she could think of worse ways to spend her last moments than having sex with William Adama.

Not that she had thought about having sex with him before, of course.

Well. Not much.

Not a _lot_, anyway.

Then he slipped his hand under her shirt, and all her thoughts just… fizzled.


	5. Part 5

Laura Roslin awoke to find that she was not dead, which was all in all quite a relief.

In addition, she was practically warm.

She stretched her legs carefully under the pile of almost dry clothes. The makeshift coverings were definitely helping to contain the heat, but the source of it was undeniably the naked man at her back. Gray light was beginning to filter through the crack in the ceiling once again, so she turned to face him and shook him lightly by the shoulder.

"Bill, it's morning."

There was no response, so she shook him harder and raised her voice. "Bill."

Stirring, he started to mumble something, but was interrupted by a hacking cough.

Laura felt her stomach twist in sudden worry and hastily put a hand to Bill's forehead.

No wonder she was feeling so warm. He was burning up.

"I think you have a fever," she told him as he began to sit up. His eyes were still unfocussed, and at first she thought he hadn't heard her.

"'S nothing," he said eventually, groggily. "Less get goin'."

"Oh, I beg to differ." Laura grabbed his clothes from the pile and tried to help him into them, but he waved her off irritably. "You need to eat something at least, before we start walking again." She started to pull her own clothes back on.

"I'm not hungry."

"And I'm starving. That's proof that you're sick." Laura fetched a handful of mushrooms and held one in front of his mouth. "Eat," she commanded.

Bill glared.

Laura raised an eyebrow.

He gave in, grudgingly letting her feed him a few of the vile things. She ate the rest of the small handful herself and put the remainder of her stash in her pockets.

Bill was fully clothed now and heaving himself up using the wall as leverage. Laura dearly wanted to lend him a hand, but she wasn't sure his obviously suffering masculine pride could bear such an offense. Instead she picked up the knife and unspent lightstick and asked, "Which way are we going?"

"That way," he said, pointing, and Laura had taken two steps before he said, "…No. It should—Hmm." He pulled a crumpled piece of paper from one of his pockets and stood under the shaft of light coming from the ceiling to examine it.

Laura went to look over his shoulder. He was looking at a map of the cave system. Thankfully the paper it was on was fairly durable and had survived its underwater stint without much damage, but Laura's worry increased when she realized that Bill had had this map with him the whole time and yet only now felt the need to refer to it. He had been carrying the information around in his mind and now, it seemed, it not longer fit.

"Where are we?" she said, deciding not to mention to him this extra little indicator that something was wrong.

"We must be here," he said, pointing. "Which means we're facing…" he consulted his compass, "this way, so we need to go that way." He turned and began to walk in that direction.

"Can I see that?" Laura asked, hating to second-guess him but at the same time unable to ignore the niggling feeling in her brain…

Bill gave her the piece of paper without comment and coughed again as he continued walking – which he was doing a lot more stiffly than yesterday, Laura noticed. Taking the map, she saw what it was that had been niggling her.

"Bill…" She tugged lightly on his sleeve. "We can't go this way. Look, there's no way out of the tunnels from there. We need to go around this way."

It took Bill a couple of seconds to understand what she was saying, and Laura thought he was going to try to argue with her. But he just said, "You're right. I'm sorry," and turned to walk in the direction she had indicated.

For some reason this bothered her more.

Trying to put her worries aside for the moment – after all, there was nothing she could do – Laura cracked the second lightstick and they once more started to trek through the dark.

She took Bill's arm again, though this time with the express purpose of being better positioned to catch him if he happened to stumble. Scratching her cheek absentmindedly, she was surprised to find it hot to the touch. Probing further, she discovered that the entire area around the large cut she had sustained during their flight through the forest two days ago was swollen and oversensitive to the touch of her own cold fingers, and when she touched the cut itself they came away sticky.

Well. It seemed Bill wasn't the only one who needed to see a doctor.

He coughed again then, and she instinctively tightened her grip on his arm.

They walked in relative silence for several hours, Laura preferring to keep talking to a minimum lest it result in a coughing fit. Bill did not object, nor try to initiate any conversation beyond what was necessary.

The lightstick became dimmer and dimmer, and eventually Laura asked to look at the map again.

"We're not going to get out before we lose the light, are we?" she said, scrutinizing it.

"No," Bill said simply.

"Damn."

"We'll manage. Just try to memorize the map, we'll find our way."

Laura did as she was told, but the addition of another worry was not pleasant.

They walked on, and gradually the light disappeared.

Then they were left in darkness.

Tightening her hold on Bill still further, Laura checked that the knife was still secure in her back pocket and reached out to touch the wall. She didn't let go of it for more than a second as she and Bill went on through the tunnels. Time was not so much of the essence anymore as certainty of their location, after all.

Twice she had to let go of the wall to catch Bill when he started to fall, having not been careful enough in his step. After a while she was almost glad she couldn't see him – his coughing had worsened and he was now unreservedly leaning on her for support, and she had no desire to watch him deteriorate. She only hoped that they would make it out into the open before his condition grew more dire.

Then the next time Bill stumbled she couldn't catch him, and ended up falling with him onto the cold, damp stone of the tunnel floor.

Getting to her knees, Laura wiped her muddy hands on her pants and reached out for Bill to help him up. She managed to pull him halfway to a sitting position, but then his strength seemed to give out and he fell back down to the ground.

"Laura," Bill said – gods, he sounded sick – "I think you should go on without me."

"No," she said firmly. "Absolutely not."

"You've got a better chance alone, without me slowing you down," he tried to reason.

"And you've got a better chance with me, so stop yammering and get up." She got a better grip on him and heaved. "Come on, Bill."

Bill seemed to have seen the futility of objecting, because with her help he now managed to get to his feet once more.

"Ready?" Laura asked as he put a hand on her shoulder to steady himself.

He took a deep breath – which unfortunately did sound more like a deep wheeze – and said, "Lead on."

Laura pulled his arm over her shoulder and did so.

Their progress continued to be slow, and they had no way of knowing how much time had passed. Laura asked Bill during one of their mushroom-eating breaks if he with his trained military mind could make some kind of estimate, but he was just as clueless as she. They stood up and soldiered on.

And then they saw light.

It was so faint at first that Laura wondered if she was imagining it, seeing things in the dark… but then Bill's dark outline became visible beside her once again, and Laura couldn't help grinning even as she saw that he looked as bad as, if not worse than, she had feared.

The outside world came into view once more, through a crack in the wall of the next cave more than large enough for a man to squeeze through.

"That is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen," Laura declared as they stepped closer.

"Mmm." Even Bill now had a trace of a smile on his lips.

They climbed carefully out and into the sunlight, Laura keeping a close watch on Bill to make sure he didn't suddenly fall and crack his head open or tumble away down the mountainside. Enjoying the late afternoon light and the fresh air, they stood still for a moment before tackling the next part of their journey.

Thankfully they were not too far up the mountain, and after their short break they managed to clamber down to the forest below in fairly good time.

Once they had reached the trees, however, they began to be shot at.

Bill pulled her to the ground – or pushed, more accurately, as he was already leaning on her heavily – just as she caught a glimpse of metal through the foliage. The mechanical clanking sound of the Centurion's walk grew closer, and Bill turned to her and said, "Laura. This time you really do have to go."

"Bill…" Laura looked helplessly from him to the source of the ominous noise.

"Don't worry." Bill grinned, and for a moment he almost looked like himself again. "I have a plan." His expression grew more serious, silently pleading with her, and he cleared his throat and said firmly, "Now _go_." He reached out and pushed her with what she was had the strong impression was all his strength, which got her on her feet before she could think about it, and then he slapped her on the buttocks, which surprised her so much that she just started running.

When she initial shock wore off she slowed down and dared to look back over her shoulder, but she couldn't see—

She ran straight into somebody's chest, and gasped in terror before she turned around and saw that it was Galen Tyrol.

"Madame President," he said, looking amused.

"Former president," she corrected, slightly stunned. Then, when clarity abruptly returned, "Admiral Adama! He's over there, I left him…"

"Already on it, ma'am. If you want to come with me and, uh, out of the line of fire, we can probably get your cheek looked at…"

Laura put a hand up to touch her cheek, then wished she hadn't. It was far more swollen than it had been earlier, and the cut itself was sticky with pus. The itch she had been almost successfully ignoring all day returned with a vengeance when her fingers touched the wound, and would not go away even after she left it alone.

"Yes," she said, pulling herself together. "Thank you, Chief."

Tyrol smiled and led the way back to another cave – but this one was well-lit and warm, and moments after they arrived Bill was carried in and tucked into a bed, with a medic attending immediately.

Laura finally allowed herself to feel some relief.

Eleven hours later the rescue ships arrived and took them home.


	6. Part 6

It was a week before Bill was released from underneath Doc Cottle's careful eye and allowed to continue his bedrest in his quarters instead of a hospital bed. It was another two days before Laura was finally able to make the time to go over to Galactica and see how he was doing.

She found him sitting on the couch, reading some documents which looked suspiciously un-recreational. He looked up when she opened the hatch and smiled.

"You know, when Doc Cottle prescribes bedrest I'm pretty sure he means you should be resting in bed," Laura said conversationally.

"I won't tell if you don't." Bill grinned conspiratorially. "Besides," he said as she joined him on the couch, "This is a lot more relaxing than lying in bed wondering what's going on."

"Oh, I remember that one." She returned his grin. "I won't tell."

Bill nodded, satisfied. "How's your cheek?" he asked,

"It's fine." She resisted the urge to reach up and touch it – the bandage had only been removed yesterday. "I'm told the scar will barely be visible."

"Shame. Nothing says 'power' like a good scar."

Laura laughed. "That is one way of looking at it."

He smiled.

Laura smiled back at him, and gathered her nerves to ask the question which had been occupying her mind ever since they had been rescued and the need to focus on survival had become less pressing. "Bill… when we slept together on the planet. I know it was to keep warm, but did you feel… something else?"

The look in his eyes told her the answer before he even spoke, and she clasped her hands together to stop their sudden shaking. "Yes," he said.

"Hmm." She gave him a slight smile, which he returned, and she could tell he was searching her eyes for something more. "Thank you," she said eventually. "That was all I needed to know." And she stood up and strode back towards the hatch.

"Just wait one minute!" Bill protested, leaping after her and grabbing her by the arm. By the time he had spun her around to face him she was giggling like a schoolgirl.

"Oh, you wanted something else, did you Admiral?" she teased.

He responded by kissing her lightly on the lips; a kiss which she responded to happily.

"You know," she said when they broke apart, "This is probably a really bad idea."

"No, it's a slightly bad idea," Bill corrected. "Think you can live with that?"

Laura grinned helplessly. "I think I can cope."

And she kissed him again.

His hand was suddenly under her clothes and on the skin of her stomach, moving leisurely upwards... She put her own hand on it through the fabric of her shirt to halt its movement. "Bill, you're sick," she reminded him.

"Not half as sick as I was the first time," he pointed out, coiling a tendril of her hair in the fingers of his other hand.

"You'll give me your pneumonia," she protested, a little less firmly.

"Fat chance." He leaned forward and began planting kisses down her neck, his hair tickling the skin of her jaw. It was very distracting.

"Doc Cottle would have my ass if he found out." This was more of an observation now than a real remonstration.

"Maybe, but I'm having it first." Having interrupted the careful placing of his trail of kisses, Bill started again from the beginning. 'Very distracting' was now an understatement, Laura thought.

Giving in, she let out a sigh of something between resignation and pleasure and released her hold on the hand under her shirt, instead running her fingers along it, over his bare wrist, up across his arm to his chest, where it was joined by her other hand to unfasten his buttons.

His own hand, now free, continued its meandering progress up her front, pausing just under her breasts to run fingers over the skin there. Those same fingers then moved sideways, tracing the outline of her bra, moving over the fabric slowly, lightly... too lightly.

"Gods, Bill, just take it off," she said, pausing in her work on his buttons to lean her head on his chest.

"Patience, Laura," he chided. "I didn't get to take my time the first time. I'm making up for it double now." He took his hand away entirely, eliciting a small moan of frustration from her, and brought his fingers up to her throat instead to work on the buttons of her blouse. "And I get to see you this time," he said, the grin evident in his voice.

He was right, of course, Laura thought, the slow pace opening up more opportunity for introspection. Down on the planet it had been dark and hurried, with the goal less the physical pleasure itself than its resulting heat. It hadn't been unpleasant, but it was a little... lacking.

This was entirely different from the outset. He could see her; she could see him, see the mischievous grin on his face and the obvious pleasure he was taking in undressing her. Their clothes and their surroundings were dry – no need to strip off quickly to escape the uncomfortable damp of the fabric. They could take their time, delighting in the removal of each piece of clothing rather than pulling them all off without a second thought.

And the fundamental difference, of course; the warmth. No cold to drive them to move as fast as possible, frantically reaching for the heat, the heat, more heat... No. They could savor each moment, committing them to memory as surely as if they were written in stone, not pencil on paper burned up almost instantly in the flame they were fighting to feed.

Laura was brought back to the present by Bill finally doing as she had asked, letting her bra drop to the floor and leaving her naked from the waist up. His grin was infectious, and she found herself returning it as he stepped back to admire his handiwork before making good use of the better access he had just gotten himself. He took one of her breasts in his mouth, and she tangled her fingers in the hair on the back of his head.

Rational thought, she decided, could take a back seat for the near future.

"Bill…" she said sometime later, lying naked and half on top of him in his rack.

"Mmhmm?" He sounded half-asleep. She had worn him out, poor boy.

"Back on New Caprica, when you made me leave you to the Cylons, you said you had a plan. What was it?" She yawned, snuggling closer to him.

"Hmm? Oh, that…" He fidgeted for a moment, trying to see her from a better angle. "Play dead and pray."

"_That_ was your plan?" Laura said incredulously, knocked slightly out of her languid complacency, shifting her own position so that she could look at him in astonishment.

"Yup."

"I would never have left you there if I'd known you were being so… stupidly heroic."

"I know," said Bill. "That's why I didn't tell you at the time." He tapped the side of his nose. "Clever, huh?"

"I believe I just used the word 'stupid'. That would usually rule out being clever as well."

"Ah, but this is an unusual situation." He sounded so pleased with himself to have come up with this response that she didn't quite have the heart to argue with it.

"So that makes it all okay," she said instead.

"Mmhmm." And he rolled over and began to snore.

"Bill..." Laura said again a few minutes later, feel a small pang of regret at waking him but unable to ignore her curiosity.

"Mmm." He didn't even move this time.

"When did you think about this so much that you could decide that it was a slightly bad idea rather than a really bad one?"

"After your cancer was cured."

"Really?" Laura was surprised. That long, and he had never said anything... Then again, neither had she...

"Before that, it was a pretty bad idea," Bill continued.

Laura laughed, wondering now exactly how long Bill had been contemplating this for. "And when did you decide that?"

"When we shook hands after I told you there was no Earth."

She felt her eyes widen at this. "But... you didn't even know I had cancer then."

Bill gave a low chuckle. "Yeah, but I didn't like you much, either. I just wanted you for your body." His grin was more than obvious in his voice.

Swatting him on the arm at this, Laura shook her head, quite astonished. "So..." she said eventually. "It's not a really bad idea, it's gone from being pretty bad to just slightly bad..." She paused, contemplating the answer to the question she was about to ask. "Will it ever be a good idea?"

"Maybe, but then... well, it might be too late." Bill rolled over again to face her. "In all I'd rather have slightly bad now than good never."

"Hmm." She nodded faintly, lost in thought. If it would never be a good idea... shouldn't that mean that it should never happen? But now that she had had a taste of it, of him, of something which in retrospect seemed so lacking in the rest of her life for so long, the mere thought of giving it up again caused a kind of pain deep inside her which made everything else seem insignificant.

So she smiled, kissed him again, and let him sleep.

No more running. She had a feeling she'd be sticking around here, being slightly bad, for a long time to come.

**The End**


End file.
